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2015-06-20 - Future Imperfect - Dance Partners
The world doesn't seem to be getting any more hospitable for Kara, an unknown amount of years in the future. The land is desolate and horribly dry, and her primary source of water was the radiator of a Plymouth Reliant that was unwittingly brought with her through time. Disgusting, but drinkable. The Plymouth turned out to be enough metal to be food for a certain species of bug that seems edible, so Kara has used parts of the car as bait, and now has a supply of food. Enough to make a trek if she wants to do so. The howling of animals in the distance is coming closer though, as if whatever it is doesn't know that she's there yet. Hopefully. Kara Zor-El has a hammer in her hand and a spear slung over her shoulder, while her cape-turned sack has a collection of gadgets for survival, as well as some jerkied bug meat. Yum. She even managed to rig up the three freeze rays as a makeshift water condensator, which allowed her to get enough moisture from the air for drinkable water. It beat radiator water, even if there wasnt much moisture in this parched air. Plus the monocle and some books for tinder - so she had the vital things for survival - fire, water, food, and a weapon or two. Maybe it was a good idea to now search for that second signal - though without a car (thank you stupid bugs)... it would probably be more difficult. "Well, this explains a few things," says a voice from behind Kara. Behind and a little to the side. A tall man is what appears to be a tailored suit is looking at the side of the trophy room, specifically at the door. "I wondered what was giving off a signal." He has a bit of a beard, is tall, rather distinguished, and quite familiar. Holding onto the handle of a sword, he turns to look at Kara, and says, "When your cousin did this, he didn't think to do anything with the remains. Bravo." The voice and face are familiar alright. Vandal Savage. Kara Zor-El holds up the hammer defensively when she hears the voice. "When my cousin did this?" She peers closer at the man. "Wait... I know you. You're um..." She thinks. "Vandal Savage. Are you responsible for this? My being here? Is my cousin here too?" she asks cautiously, gripping the hammer. Vandal Savage, scourge of millions, taps gently on the door to the Trophy Room and says, "We should probably seal this up again if you're leaving. Keep what's left out of the wrong hands." He shakes his head, then adds, "I might replace them with some prototypes someday, just to honor the memory." He looks back, then blinks as if remembering that Kara is there, and says, "I am sorry, I've been on my own for so long I talk to myself. It is SO nice to see someone wake me from my sleep again." He pauses as if processing Kara's questions, then says, "No, I'm fairly certain you got here on your own. You woke me, after all." Kara Zor-El peers at Vandal curiously. "O....kaaaaaaaaaaaay?" she says slowly. "Yeah I'll just... seal this up again," she says, keeping her distance as she take her phone out from the dimensional pocket, still holding the hammer defensively. She punches in a few buttons to make the door close again, before putting it away. Then back using two hands to hold the hammer. Dang thing's heavy. "So... um..... I woke you from your sleep did I?" She looks around. "How about explaining that? Annnd explaining where I am? Or when I am? I have some theories...." The bearded man smiles warmly, though his face doesn't really seem suited to the action. Then he says, "Thank you. The few buildings that are left are pretty special, each in their own way. Did you know the Taj Mahal survived? I really don't know how, it's not even protected. Yet there it is." Tends to ramble. He motions away from the Hall of Justice, then says, "I'd love to explain. Would you like something to eat, or drink? It's a bit of a walk to my hover tractor, but it's not metal so the bugs leave it alone. I have supplies there." The howling from outside makes him roll his eyes, then he says, "They mutated from wolves, but are terrified of humans these days. Sound awful anyway. I just ignore them." Kara Zor-El looks over at the sound. "You know what? Yeah... lets go to your hover tractor." Vandal Savage did look like he had some rather defensible shelter after all. And for a supervillain he sort of looked... well... not quite all there anymore. "Eating, drinking, maybe explaining when I am, like I asked before?" she says as she follows him cautiously. Savage sheathes his sword, commenting as he does. He seems to comment on everything he does. "Happy to. More than happy to. I really mean that. I normally don't put this away because you can get picked up by the birds without warning, but if there's two of us they shouldn't get an ideeeaaas!" The comment is cut off by a large bird swooping down and grabbing him by the shoulders, lifting him into the air. Kara Zor-El blinks. "Crap! Hold on!" Yeah she wasnt going to just let the bird carry him off to dinner. Even if from what she knows, this guy regenerates from anything and is immortal. She drops the hammer and her bag, takes her spear, aims.... and throws. Fortunately she learned how to throw javelins back on Themyscira from warrior women who train for thousands of years on exactly this sort of weapon. The spear impacts with the bird with perfection. Diana would be proud of Kara, except that she's doing it to save a male who's actually kind of a dick. Or was, anyway. But the bird comes down with a screeching crash, dropping Vandal like a rock. Who hits the ground with a satisfying thud. Shortly after, his voice comes painedly from the impact point, where he says, "Oh that's what pain feels like." Kara Zor-El retrieves the spear, then looks over at Vandal. "No offense, but I only did it because you have shelter, supplies, and answers. Soooo lets go before anything else comes to make us dinner?" Straightening his leg, Vandal sits up and waits for it to knit enough to walk on. "Fairly said, I thorougly deserve it." He gets to his feet, then straightens up and leads the way. With a bit of a limp for a short while. "Sorry for the distraction, I promise it wasn't part of the plan. This way." Like nothing had interrupted, he's shortly talking again, cheerful as anything. "Well, as you asked, yes. Your cousin showed up...kind of in the same way you did, about oh I'd say about three hundred thousand years ago. He did some time travelling too, and I'm fairly certain it was not intentional." He turns, looking at Kara with the corner of his eyes, and says, "I don't think the old calendar applies anymore. I'd say you're a few million years in the future from where you left, Supergirl." Kara Zor-El blinks. A few million years. That WOULD explain the sun being red. Except.... "Wait, wouldnt it take a lot longer for a yellow sun to become a red giant?" Then realized something else. "Wait... you've been here for millions of years? How long has the Earth been - you know...." She looks around. "Barren?" she asks, following him. Poor guy! Wait there was more she needed to exclaim about. "Kal was in the future?" Having learned the value of taking your time, Vandal takes that moment to ignore the questions and point up ahead. "Our ride. I built it myself, do you like it?" It appears to be a glass vehicle, with a cabin you can get inside to be safe from the wildlife. "I found transparent aluminum to be one of the easiest substances to replicate so I made a lot of my work out of it. It tends to not clutter the landscape either, which is nice." He pops the door, offering Kara the seat. One seat. "Forgive me, I rarely have a passenger. It'll still work, it's mostly voice controlled anyway." "Keeps me in practice. Language is a bit of a lost art." Kara Zor-El nods a little. Yeah this guy was not entirely there at all. Especially if whatever made the earth barren happened at least 300,000 years ago, if not longer. "Er.. yeah. It's... pretty neat, I'll say." she says as she gets into the vehicle and sits down in the offered passenger seat. Climbing in after Kara, Vandal finds a comfortable way to get set up and says, "Primary domicile, front gate please computer." The tractor hums and rises into the air about ten feet, then takes off south. Toward the 'signal' Kara detected earlier, which is probably his doing. "Now, your questions. We'll have a few minutes before we arrive, it seems a good time. So, yes. The planet. That's my fault, I caused the sun to go to this stage early and killed everyone on the planet. About the year 20XX by your calendar. And your cousin was here, got into some trouble. It was quite the adventure really." Kara Zor-El looks at Vandal as he talks about committing worldwide genocide. Maybe she should have let the bird eat him. "You're talking about it pretty casually for someone who killed billions and billions of people." she says, watching him closely. "Maybe being by yourself and going insane, which you seem to be doing, that's justice for you." Vandal nods, saying, "That's about what I decided after a while too. I deserve to sit here til the end of time, on my own. But I'm really hoping that this time you go back and actually stop me, since I told your cousin the same thing. I don't think he managed it, because I'm still here." Giving a little shake of his head, he turns around and grabs something,then offers a little cup of a white drink. "Samosa?" Kara Zor-El pauses as she takes the cup. "Well.... I don't remember my cousin ever telling me about the time he time travelled to ... what year are you saying you did this? Whatever year it was, I don't think he ever told me about him time travelling to the future to stop you. Maybe you tried it more than once?" She looks at the samosa. "You're serious right?" Then says, "Screw it." and takes the samosa. "Wait... So... Kal came here 300,000 years ago.... then got back to the present, according to you. How?" she asks as she looks at Vandal curiously before taking a sip of the samosa. Vandal grins, sipping his own drink as a large building starts to come into view. Still a ways away, it's really quite large. And apparently made of forms of glass. Or aluminum. "I suspect that he hasn't gone yet, in your time. It's always confusing when one person does a bigger time jump, as you have. So he'd have left for my past, but sometime in your future. I've written quite a few papers on the topic if you'd like to read them." Then he motions through the front window, which is mostly the entire cab really being transparent. "Home. Yours as well if you like, I have plenty of room. He went back with my time machine of course." Said so calmly. Kara Zor-El gets out of the car after gathering up her stuff and follows Vandal savage out of the vehicle. She looks around it forlornly. Great, this was the second time she saw a planet die that she lived on. And now all she had to look forward to was living here with a genocidal nutbag who's telling her that Superman couldnt stop him from causing all this. "Yeah well I doubt that Kal would have not done everything he could have to have stopped you. When exactly do you-..." Kara pauses. "Wait.... did you say you have a time machine?" she asks in disbelief. Vandal hops out of the tractor, heading toward the front gate through the stalks of corn he has growing outside. "Several actually. We might have to do some work to get them functioning over the time span, but I'm fairly certain we can get you home. Though I have to be honest, I've been working on them for a very long time and I don't know if I can get a solid bridge over more than a million years. It's really very difficult. Do you by chance remember exactly the coordinates geographically you arrived at?" He reaches out and pulls down some corn, adding randomly, "I'm still so proud of this. You have no idea how hard it is to make good corn." Kara Zor-El follows, still in disbelief at this guy. "Several. Of course you do. Um... yeah actually I have a pretty exact idea of where I arrived." She looks at the corn. "Yeah. That's really nice, can we get back to these time machines you have and what you'd need to make a solid bridge over the amount of time we're talking about? I mean..... maybe we can do a bunch of smaller jumps or maybe if you have a good enough power source or something?" The old man shakes his head. He looks at Kara, then says, "Let me show you what's possible, and we can get your brilliant mind on the job. This might take a while, if you don't mind waiting for proper hospitality. I do hate wasting a good tailored salad and grilled fish on lemon spices. Do you mind if we have lunch first? Trust me...you've got time." There are many rules to follow in life. Say please and thank you. Treat others as you would have them treat you. Cross at the green, not in between. But probably the most important one, at least here, is this: Humor the guy who has the time machine capable of getting you back home. "Sure.... lunch sounds good."